The One Spirit event in the Hindu Parishad & Cultural Centre in Saanichton was a great success! The video above gives the highlights of the evening, which had everyone humming, singing or dancing at different points in the program.

A huge thank you to the Hindu community for welcoming us and serving a wonderful meal, to our MCs Shrikant Shenwai and Lesia Kohut, and to the many volunteers and participants!

Special thanks to our wonderful presenters: Scott Sam and Our Culture Matters drummers (right); Rabbi Matthew Ponak (above); Bita Kamalian of the Baha’i community; Sharron MacLeod of New Thought in Nanaimo; Bob Gilbert and Amy Nold of the United Church; Prashant Pednekar and Vinod & Robina Bhardwaj, Hindu community; Carol Ann Sokoloff of the Sufi community; John Borrows, VMS Chair.

Roughly 70 people attended the event, organized by VMS in collaboration with the Hindu community. Several others viewed the live stream from the FB event page, where the entire program can be seen, including the ending dance with multifaith lyrics (at 1:25).

Dr Trevor Hancock and Clare Attwell will be presenting “Our Shared Future as a Bioregion: Re-forging the Connections” at 2:30 on Sunday, September 17^th at the Multifaith Centre, at the gateway to Finnerty Gardens, University of Victoria. (Map here) The organizations they’re involved in are at the cutting edge of progress in this area, and an inspiration to do all we can to further the cause of living in harmony with nature and each other.  

What would it take to live within the limits of the places we call home – while also living responsibly as citizens of this planet? All life on Earth shares only one planet.  Yet, as the dominant species, we have weakened our connections to the rest of life and each other.  We now face cascading global and local challenges that will require levels of cooperation unlike anything humans have done before. What will it take to rekindle those connections? How do we weave the knowledge from the work already happening on the ground throughout our bioregion?  How do we honour ‘story of place’ along with the indigenous and spiritual dimensions of this work? Shouldn’t we be talking about this?   Please indicate your interest by signing up on this Google form. Those who express an interest will be invited to a follow up meeting in October with Joe Brewer and colleagues from the Design School for Regenerating Earth. For related information on social and ecological sustainability in Victoria and the Cascadia bioregion, you might also like to see One Planet Conversations and Regenerating Cascadia.

Dr. Trevor Hancock is public health physician, retired Professor and Senior Scholar at the School of Public Health and Social Policy, University of Victoria. In the 1980s he helped to create the global healthy cities movement and has been an internationally recognised leader in this area. In recent years he has focused on the concept of a ‘One Planet’ community/region as a way to integrate the concepts of healthy and sustainable communities, and has started a new NGO, Conversations for a One Planet Region. 

Clare Attwell has worked in community cultural development from the local to provincial level, and as a textile and multi-media artist. She currently works with several local and global communities engaged in Earth Regeneration. These include the Design School For Regenerating Earth, Regenerate Cascadia, and Conversations for a One Planet Region Society, a local, Victoria based non-profit helping to catalyze a Bioregional conversation across the region.

Around 250 people attended this year’s event on a beautiful August evening, seated on folding chairs, lawn chairs and blankets for this great grassroots community event. Thanks go out to the many organizations, volunteers, staff and public who made it a great success! Working together to commemorate the unspeakable tragedy of the atomic bombings of 1945 produced a celebration of our collective determination to create a more peaceful world.

Although the event has taken place in Victoria for about 25 years, this is just the 2^nd year at the new Japanese-style Pavilion in Esquimalt Gorge Park. This year’s event was organized under the auspices of the Greater Victoria Peace School with the support of the Victoria Multifaith Society, the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, the Victoria Nikkei Cultural Society, and the Raging Grannies (the original organizers).

Lantern-making on the porch of the Pavilion was followed by a program with MC Lyle Mackenzie, with Elder Bear Sam,  the Furusato dancers, Taiko Drummers, Gettin’ Higher Choir and Raging Grannies interspersed with speakers. The evening ended with the floating of the lanterns on the reflecting pools just after sunset at 9 pm. A 2-minute video clip of the evening’s highlights and a few photographs set to Taiko drumming are at the links. Mark your calendars for future years! The Pavilion has already been reserved by the organizers for August 6 in 2024 and 2025!

Join us on August 6th, 2023, to celebrate peace, launch lanterns, and enjoy Japanese culture! Reserve a spot and get the map link here on Eventbrite.

Honouring Peace: Hiroshima-Nagasaki Day is a free, family-friendly event that will be held outdoors at the beautiful Japanese-style Gorge Park Pavilion, on the 78th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. Each year, peace is celebrated and its importance remembered through music, poetry, dance and drumming that moves and inspires us.

Lantern-making will begin at 7:00 pm on the outdoor porch of the Pavilion (all materials provided), and an educational display will be available indoors. The program will begin at 7:30 pm and end with the launching of the lanterns in the Pavilion reflecting pools at 9 pm. A container for donations will be passed for those who wish to contribute to costs. Information on the program and seating is at the Eventbrite link.

Honouring Peace is supported by the Greater Victoria Peace School (GVPS), with support from the Victoria Nikkei Cultural Society (VNCS), the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War Canada (IPPNWC) and the Victoria Multifaith Society (VMS).

VMS has begun the rollout of Promoting Cultural Awareness through the Anti-Racism Toolkit, a year-long project to promote 8 workshops covering a variety of types of racism and prejudice. If you’d like a presentation for your group or organization, please get in touch.

We’re happy to announce that in May we were invited to present to the team of roughly 12 officers belonging to Saanich Police Community Liaison section, and have done two workshops there to date. As the graph shows, police-reported hate crimes are most often to do with race/ethnic group (in blue) and religion (in red), and have been rising in number. The sessions were informative on both sides, as we learned about the Community Liaison officers and the valuable work they perform in schools and around town. The officers were thoughtful, open, sensitive to the issues, and a pleasure to work with.

The Victoria Multifaith Society is pleased to announce that we have recently received approval for a British Columbia Multiculturalism and Anti-Racism Grant for 2023, to assist with the rollout of our Learning Anti-Racism Toolkit in communities across the province.

If you’d like to be involved in the facilitation of these workshops, please let us know at Victoriamultifaith@gmail.com

The Toolkit, which includes workshops, glossary, videos and a facilitator’s guide, can be viewed or downloaded from this website, under the Resources/Anti-Racism tab.

We’ll have more information to share as the project unfolds. The project coordinators for the rollout are Jo Beattie, David Batterham and Sheila Flood.

The VMS board is very grateful to BC Multiculturalism for their support of this project.

The 345 participants who attended the World Religions Conference on Sunday, February 5^th, comfortably filled the Garry Oak Room of Saanich Commonwealth Centre when the event began at 4 p.m. Displays and food lined the perimeter of the room. Banners, screen and a temporary stage with podium lined the front.

Salaylexw Joan Morris of the Songhees Nation opened with a beautiful prayer and greeting, followed by Mayor Dean Murdoch of Saanich, who gave welcoming remarks. Short welcomes were also offered by several people including May Shihadeh of VMS and Rizwan Peerzada of the Ahmadiyya community, the principal organizers of the event.

The 9 panelists on the stage, along with Moderator Karen Harper of Saanich City Council, were: Wayne Codling (Buddhism); Leslie Flynn (Anglican); Shrikant Shenwai (Hindu); Umran Bhatti (Ahmadiyya Muslim); Lesia Kohut (New Thought); Gian Singh Kotli (Sikh); Dale Ruttan (Latter Day Saints); Shoshana Litman (Jewish); and Gita Badiyan (Bahá’í).

Each of the panelists spoke for 10 minutes on the theme of the timeless question of suffering. Gita spoke about its potential relationship with personal spiritual growth. Leslie gave a “lightning history” of how humanity has looked at suffering over the ages. Umran talked about the path of hope, compassion and mercy, and Gian of happiness, wisdom and honest labour. Dale described the process of atonement, and the connection between suffering, joy and agency. Shoshana told a beautiful story linking “choosing heaven” to choosing to serve others. Shrikant asked, “What is joy?” as the corollary question to the cause of suffering, saying that good begets good. Lesia reiterated the concept of choice, explaining that what we think becomes our life experience as expressions of infinite potentiality. Wayne spoke of the cessation of suffering through the Noble Eightfold Path of right understanding, right intention, right speech, and so on. Moderator Karen Harper remarked on the complementary nature and common threads between all these perspectives.

The East Indian meal, with vegetarian and non-vegetarian choices, lined an entire wall of the room, giving everyone time to mingle at the end and browse the displays. VMS would like to thank Mayor Dean Murdoch, Moderator Karen Harper, the speakers and participants, and especially the Ahmadiyya Muslim community for providing the meal, venue and much of the organization. This was our first year honouring World Interfaith Harmony Week by collaborating together on this event. More photos of the event are here.